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Colorado's heavy weather wreaks minor havoc, lures storm chasers

Weather patterns set up in such an enticing way that Tony Laubach drove all the way from his home in southern Illinois to chase the storms that exploded across Colorado's Eastern Plains on Wednesday.

And while the system didn't produce epic tornadoes for Laubach and his fellow storm chasers, there was plenty to keep him busy dodging hail and tracking supercells.

"I think the fact that we're chasing an HP (high-precipitation) supercell in the high plains of Colorado — that's kind of rare," Laubach said.

The storm pounded northeastern parts of the Denver area with hail, caused street flooding and, because of tornado warnings, closed Denver International Airport.

Severe weather impacted operations at Denver International Airport on Wednesday afternoon, May 21, 2014. (Sarah Millett, special to The Post)

Officially, six tornadoes were spotted — three of them in Aurora — but no significant damage was reported.

Heavy weather also snarled traffic on Interstate 70, Peña Boulevard, U.S. 85 and elsewhere as drivers struggled with flooded roads. In some areas, snow plows were called out to clear the hail.

Parts of Tower Road and Peoria Street, and other roads in Commerce City, were still closed at 10 p.m. because of standing water.

Passengers at DIA were told to evacuate their gates and take shelter as the storm moved through, but they were allowed to begin returning to gates shortly after 3 p.m. At least 40 flights were diverted, and lengthy delays were reported into the night.

Laubach said that while the storm didn't quite live up to billing, he wouldn't rule out the possibility that Thursday's weather could produce significant activity — most likely heavy rain and hail with perhaps a small threat of tornadoes. The National Weather Service forecast agreed that storms were very possible.

On Wednesday afternoon, residents in Commerce City were shoveling hail like snow, and huge pools of standing water slowed traffic in the northbound lanes of Quebec Street just north of Interstate 270.

Similar flooding was seen at an underpass on Brighton Boulevard and along Tower Road at Green Valley Ranch Boulevard.

Mary Marquez, who has lived in Commerce City for about five years, said she had never seen hail accumulate as it did Wednesday afternoon.

"Water has flooded the house, last year," she said at her home near East 62nd Avenue and Kearney Street. "But this is really the first time I saw ice like this."

After the storm had passed, she and some neighbors were in the streets shoveling some of the hail — at least 4 inches in spots — away from the storm drains in the street.

The hail fell for almost an hour, Marquez said.

Commerce City relied on generators to keep operations going.

City officials trying to clear some water on Vasquez under Interstate 25 ended up helping push a stalled car from the road.

In Stapleton, hail ripped leaves from trees and caused flooding on some streets and sidewalks.

At Tower Road and Green Valley Ranch, cars and trucks sprayed water about 8 feet into the air. Some homes in Green Valley Ranch were pockmarked by hail.

As the tornado warnings shifted east from Denver to Aurora and then past Byers, Laubach and the storm chasers moved along with them.

Laubach was a close friend and colleague of renowned local storm chaser Tim Samaras, who with his son, Paul, and Carl Young died in an Oklahoma tornado almost exactly a year ago.

After checking the Colorado forecasts, Laubach made a beeline to the Denver area, along the way picking up a chase partner who flew from Michigan to Kansas City, Mo.

And while the severe-weather pattern may continue for the next few days, Laubach figured that Wednesday would be the most likely window to observe tornadic activity.

"Today was my pick-of-the-litter day," said Laubach. "Tomorrow, I think that you're going to have more of a hail and flooding threat than tornado threat, because I think the upper-level winds are weakening more."

Late Wednesday afternoon — after having driven 962 miles, so far, in two days — Laubach was tracking storm activity along I-70 east of Bennett.

"There were brief (tornado) touchdowns, for sure, but I don't believe there was anything long-lasting or terribly violent," he said. "For a good, solid tornado, you really need air flowing into the storm, and it just wasn't seeing enough to support that kind of intense tornado."

Still, the activity drew lots of fellow storm chasers to the area in what has generally been a slow spring for tornadoes.

"This is more reminiscent of an Oklahoma chase than a Colorado chase," Laubach said. "But, given as slow a year as it's been for the majority of the country, everybody's taking what they can get out of it."

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